Chapter Three: The Abyss

A bit of the culture of sirens is looked into here.

Chapter Three: The Abyss

The dead sirens, their individual songs lost to time, the echoes survive only in this place, where they rest. It’s always dark here, hardly any light filters through to down here, a few rays here and there.

Most of the time when a siren comes down here, it’s because they want to respect the dead or ask for advice. Most will just light up some of their scales so they can see, but I find that it allows you to “see” more when you don’t.

Today I want to ask Elyselle what to do, since she’s the one who died for her love of a human, I want to know what she thinks about my situation. I want her advice, so I’m going to spend a while down here, like how the Matriarch would do in the old times. It might even take a few days.

I don’t want to potentially ruin the ritual, what parts I can do anyways. I need Elyselle’s advice, or at least I need one of the Echoes to give me something, which means I need to do this right. They won’t take any disrespect, they’re the ancients of our culture, they’ve been giving advice for centuries.

I find a spot to sit among the bones of the Echoes. I will spend however long it takes to get the advice I need here. Hopefully they won’t make me wait a week, it’s rumored that the first Matriarch of our Chorus was made to wait for two weeks for advice from the sea itself.

I close my eyes, perhaps if I try to meditate they’ll realize that I’m here for advice. I don’t know how long it is before somebody asks me what I’m doing.

“What in the seven seas are you doing?” Her voice is familiar, in a distant way. She sounds like my mother if she were younger.

“Hoping for some advice, maybe to connect to the Echoes if I can.” I reply, my eyes are still closed, but I can practically hear her ‘wtf’ face.

“You’re not the Matriarch.” She says it as though it’s an accusation.

“No, I’m not.” I agree “But I’m still hoping for a bit of advice. Maybe from Elyselle.” I add the last part without even thinking about it.

“What could you possibly want with that traitor? She tried to save a human, and she wanted to cry upon its death.” She sounds angry now. It’s definitely not Elyselle, based on her reaction. The Echoes somehow know everything about the Chorus, so that doesn’t narrow it down at all. It could be any of them. She continues before I can think about how it’s a tad weird that I know what she’s saying, even though she’s talking out loud, in an underwater trench.

“Seriously, you could probably ask anybody for advice about what to do with that human, and you’re choosing Elyselle?” My eyes snap open, and I take her in. She looks startlingly like me, with eyes that seem to hold more than just one color, except her hair is red. Bright red.

“You knew…?” I flash the question, with how low the flashes are, it’s the equivalent of a whisper.

“Of course I knew. How do you think we always know what advice to give a Matriarch.” You’re not the Matriarch her words echo in my head. I’m not, but I was still hoping they might give me advice.

“Then, if I may ask, what do you think I should do?” I flash the question. She doesn’t even really pay attention to which scales I’m flashing.

“Drown her. You know exactly what you need to do. You just don’t want to admit it. Drown that human. You’re a siren, what do you hope to achieve by keeping her alive?” I wince at the question. I… don’t know, what do I get from keeping her alive? She’s human, she’s going to die anyways.

“I- I don’t know…” I trail off as another voice comes in.

“Mother don’t be cruel.” I look up, and there she is. Elyselle. Maybe I will get advice beyond drowning Callista. She turns to me. “I understand that you don’t want to drown that human, Callista? Right?” Her voice is sweet, the same voice that cried out for her human until they cut her voice out.

“Yes, Elyselle, I don’t know what to do. I find that I cannot bring myself to drown her, yet I know that I should. What am I to do?” Between my face and how quickly my scales flash, she must see my desperation, yet she only says two words.

“Lets talk”

…

I have to drown her. I should. Even Elyselle said that it’s better to do it before I’m truly attached to her. Her and her mother never agreed when they were alive, yet they agree on this.

I know I can’t do it, it’s already too late for me to want to drown her. I just won’t; that way neither of us has to get hurt.

What do you hope to achieve by keeping her alive? The question flashes behind my eyes. What do I hope to achieve? Pain and suffering for both of us? Maybe.

I find myself swimming towards the shipwrecks, the blood has been shifted enough through the water that it’s not visible, but the taste still lingers, sweet, but stale.

The light filters through the wrecks, it’s dim and they barely cast shadows down here. There are human skulls everywhere, ribs tossed here carelessly. This is where we get our food, but it’s also where we put the waste.

Sometimes when we let the littles out here, they’ll find little trinkets from the shipwrecks. It’s not hard, if you’re looking for them. A bit of light shines in my eye, there’s something. I reach to pick it up, a necklace. Maybe Callista will feel a bit better if I give her something another human had. I have to bring her more food tomorrow anyways.

Hopefully she hasn’t died, it’s been about twenty four hours since I checked on her, so maybe she has died. I guess I won’t know until she just stops picking up the things I leave her.

She must have been waiting at the edge of the woods for me, since she came out almost immediately. Maybe she’ll still be waiting for me, that way I can give her this little necklace in person.

I swim further into the wreckage. All of these human deaths, just so we can go to sleep with full bellies. It shouldn’t matter, they are lesser than us, we are the hunters, they are the hunted. Odysseus should’ve died in those straits, we should’ve stayed there.

We left because we didn’t want Odysseus to think that the Chorus was still alive, he thought he had killed all of us, fortunately he didn’t. Though we ended up leaving those straits, our ancestral home because of it. Odysseus murdered dozens of us, for what? All of his remaining men died anyway, and he chose it. Apollo watched the whole thing, they killed his cattle.

Sometimes he’ll come just to listen to us sing, he says he’s quite fond of our songs, and Athena had to do quite a bit of convincing to get him to agree to let Odysseus free because he killed so many of us.

I’ve only ever met him once in three hundred years. He usually comes about every two centuries to see if we’re still alive. He’s actually due in about a year, my three hundredth birthday.

I swim home, hiding the necklace under a rock near the shore of the island. I have to get home, I’ll tell mother I was looking for new littles in the trench, she shouldn’t question that.

“Where have you been?” Her question is bright. She’s upset I’ve been gone so long, though I’m sure it was only a few hours.

“I was looking for new littles in the trench, I thought maybe there might’ve been some new ones, since we haven’t looked for a while.” It’s a lie, but I look her in the eyes as my scales flash my explanation.

“We were planning on looking later today. Did you find any?” She’s less angry now, clearly she believes me so far, now I just need to play my cards correctly and I’m in the clear.

“No, but it still might be a good idea to check later too.” Technically true, I didn’t find any littles in the trench.

“Well, since you must’ve searched quite thoroughly, perhaps you should rest a bit.”

Author's Note

1438 words.
I'm not sure if the length of this chapter compared to others is okay, or even if the ending is appropriate. I'm gonna be honest, I don't know how to do scene changes all that well, and if you've noticed, the chapter ends are typically right after something meaningful happened. I hope it makes them flow well, but please let me know.